Phoenix
by Brass Mama
Summary: After Ziva leaves, Tony is left to sort out his life after NCIS and look back at his beginnings to move forward. Post Love and Reason and Chapter 1 of Helen's Doubts. Alt season 7. T for swearing.
1. Cha Cha Changes

Disclaimers: I do not own NCIS.

Spoilers: Pretty AU. Set after Love and Reason and right after the first chapter of Helen's Doubt.

Warnings: Swearing.

Pairings: Passive Tiva

A/N: My new story set in Helen's AU. Not necessary to read any of it, you just need to know that her AU is Torchwood based and involves a long on going series of stories that include several cannons. You should still read it just because they are fan-tas-tic stories.

This is after my story Love and Reason, at the end of which Tony quits NCIS in order to be with Ziva after Vance denies her application to be an agent. In Helen's story Doubts, Ziva leaves in the middle of the night for Cardiff, leaving little more than a note.

I haven't seen all of NCIS, so anything related to Tony's past is based of what I can remember and what I can find online, which isn't much. I'm taking a few liberties with a Baltimore PD, mainly 'cause I want to borrow yet another character from yet another series (plural). Apologies to any fans of Homicide: Life on the Streets. I haven't seen must of the show, but am borrowing Munch and Baltimore for Tony's back story. I'm writing a bit of "a two birds, one stone" story. Covering Tony getting his old job back and how he got into NCIS in the first place. Hope the format works.

* * *

**March 10, 2010**

Driving away from Gibbs' house Tony felt lost. He'd quit his job for the woman he loved and she'd run out in the middle of the night. Gibbs hadn't told him, but he could guess where she was. Actually, he couldn't, he had no idea where was. She could be anywhere from Las Vegas to St. Petersburg by now. His guess was Israel, but he doubted that. She could have gone to Cardiff, but he didn't know. She was lost and as a result so was he, which is why he almost hit a dog that ran out in front of him.

"Shit" He slammed his foot down hard enough to make it sting. He watched the black lab run off down the street. Maybe he could grovel at Vance's feet and get his job back. He'd quit only yesterday, and already he felt so confused about, well…everything. He was unemployed and single.

Tony could go drink, but no half decent bars were open this early in the day. Hell, it wasn't even noon yet. A car behind him honked him away from his thoughts.

"Move it!" the woman in the car behind him shouted.

He let off the brakes and continued toward his apartment. He finally knew what he was going to do. He was going to call his old boss in Baltimore, see if anything was open. Hopefully, there was and even if there wasn't his old captain would know of some opening somewhere. Right now, Tony needed something to ease thing sting of being slapped in the face by Ziva. He needed a job. He needed to figure out where he was going with his life.

Not long ago, Tony had thought his life was set. He had a fantastic job, a great team, a decent place to crash. What else did he really need, other than a girlfriend? Then all this stuff happened. Rivkin showed up, attacked him. Ziva left and vanished. They rescued her. He quit his job for her. They'd slept together. Now, she was god knows where. His life was a shit pool. One mistake and bad choice after another.

Tony parked his red mustang in front of his apartment building and headed up to his apartment. He kept his rolodex in the bed stand drawer. He sat on the bed and found himself inhaling deeply. The sheets stilled smelled of Ziva. She didn't wear perfume but her scent was there, unfaded by here absence. Last night had been amazing, all the shared whispers. He smiled, remembering when Ziva had told him she was a screamer. She was, but that hadn't been his focus last night. The focus had been the two of them. How much they'd hid themselves from each other, how they wanted to just let go of it all and show themselves to the other.

_But, now she's gone. _Tony lamented for what had to be the fiftieth time today. He pulled out the number of his old boss and his cell and dialed. Three rings later, he picked up. "Captain Pankraz."

"Hey, Taffy. It's Tony Dinozzo." Tony sounded a lot higher spirited than he felt. Captain David "Taffy" Pankraz had been his boss for two and a half years while he'd worked homicide.

"Hi, Tony. Long time no talk. What you up to? Haven't heard a peep from you since you booted us off that Navy case in August." Taffy spoke in a deep, James Earl Jones-like voice with an odd bit of Sean Connery thrown in for kicks.

"Not much to hear about, Taffy. I was wondering if you had any vacancies up there in Baltimore." Tony skipped the explanation, mostly because he was still trying to put into words a story that wouldn't make him look like Romeo. He hated how every one compared them selves to Juliet, she didn't even die until after Romeo did. Romeo was the one who threw it all to the wind for the girl. Juliet faked her death so she could be with him and he went and killed himself. _Great, my life is one of Shakespeare's tragedies._

"What, you lose that NCSI job? What you do, piss off the director?"

"Uh, something like that. Do you have any openings, Taffy?" Tony, pulled over at his usual coffee shop.

"Maybe, I'll double check, but I think one of our detectives is transferring to Arizona. I'll let you know."

"Thanks, Captain."

"Good to hear from you Dinozzo."

"Same here, Taffy. I've got to go bye."

"'Kay, talk to you later. Say hello to your old boss for me."

"Sure, Taffy. See ya." Tony clicked his phone shut and laid back his head, thinking about his days in Baltimore, over ten years ago.

* * *

**Baltimore, Maryland**

**July 12, 1999**

"Dinozzo!" Lieutenant David Pankraz leaned out of his office to yell at one of his detectives.

"What boss?" Detective Anthony Dinozzo's head popped up over a row of file cabinets.

"You just caught a homicide down town, go!" Pankraz went back into his office, only to hear Dinozzo's whining. He would've fired him long ago if he weren't such a great cop.

"But, I've already got three other open cases, boss! Can't Munch take it, he has zero cases, right now."

Dinozzo was referring to long time Baltimore detective John Munch, one known for conspiracy theories and a dark wit. Not to mention the gallery that had been across the street, with a huge photograph of Munch, with his business hanging out where all could see it. Oh, how much they'd laughed.

"Dinozzo!" Pankraz boomed. Tony stopped whining, grabbing his stuff from his desk and scurried off, certain that vice up stairs and cold case, in the room over, had heard the Lieutenant's voice. He prayed that his boss would be in a better mood when he got back.

"Hey, Newt." Dinozzo nodded at Officer Nuñez, known as Newt by the detectives. He was always straight forward and knew lots of odd facts that helped their cases. _He'll make a great detective, preferably sooner rather than later,_ Tony thought. "What've you got for me today?"

Newt grimaced and looked over at the white-covered remnants of the body. "Dead Naval Commander."

Dinozzo frowned. "Great, Navy. You call NCIS?"

All of the Detectives and most of the police officers new about NCIS. Being a port city, a lot of Marines and Naval personel went through Baltimore. And for some reason they committed a lot of crimes here too. Detective Dinozzo hadn't had the pleasure of working with the agency in his two years of working as a Detective. They were notorious for being a thorn in the side and a pain in the ass. Not to mention their leader, a former Marine sniper, ha a knack for making PD bend backwards for him. "Yep." the African American officer, nodded. "They asked us to hold the scene until their agents get here. They said about an hour until then."

Tony frowned again; he had a feeling this case was going to be very different.

* * *

AN: Just a note, Captain Pankraz's mistake, calling NCIS NCSI wasn't a typo.  
A bit of background: he was Tony's boss in Baltimore and his nickname 'Taffy' came from the Welsh form of David. I thought it would be interesting to use David since it's spelt the same way as Ziva's last name. Thanks for reading. PLEASE R&R, so I know if this format works. :)


	2. Hello, Mr Gibbs

Disclaimers: I do not own NCIS.

Spoilers: Pretty AU. Set after Love and Reason and right after the first chapter of Helen's Doubt.

Warnings: Swearing.

Pairings: Passive Tiva

A/N: Second Chapter. Gets into NCIS in '99. Thnx to Roos for correcting my bad spelling. Aki-con is this weekend, woot. Longer Chapter to tide ya'll over. Hehe…

* * *

Washington, D.C.

July 12, 1999

Special Agent Brent Langer was bored. He was stuck waiting for his boss to come out of MTAC with fellow agent Greg Taylor. They were delivering their report on their last case to the director while Brent had been introducing himself to NCIS' newest forensic tech, a Abby Sciuto, who seemed rather strange to him. He couldn't seem to figure out how Director Morrow had been convinced to hire a Goth, like Ms. Sciuto. Some one, cough, Gibbs, cough, must have put something in the NCIS director's coffee.

Langer was currently the probie of the group, then Special Agent Vivian Blackadder, and last but not least, Special Agent Greg Taylor, though Gibbs still called him 'George'. Of course, it was closer to his name than what Gibbs called Langer and Vivian, 'Bruce' and 'Veronica' respectively, at least usually respectively.

The phone on his desk rang him out of his slightly depressed thoughts.

"Agent Langer. Agent Gibbs' office." Langer tried not to yawn.

"Hi! This is Lieutenant Pankraz from Baltimore Homicide, we've got a dead Navy Commander, thought you'd guy's would want to send a team out." The man said gruffly.

"Thanks." Langer shifted forward to grab a pen and paper. He finished getting the needed information as succinctly as possible, wrapping up the phone call just as Gibbs and Greg walked down the stairs and into the bullpen.

"Boss."

"Bruce?"

"Uh… Lieutenant Pankraz from…"

"From Baltimore. I know him."

"They've got a dead Naval Commander. His detective is holding the seen for us."

"Good, gear up. George, get Veronica from the evidence garage." Gibbs headed off. Greg lagged behind looking toward Langer. "Which detective did we catch, Probie?"

"A Detective Dinozzo." Langer looked at him, slightly confused. He didn't see why the case detective mattered, though this would be his first case in Baltimore, only his tenth case as an agent.

"Thank God. One of the other detectives, Munch, he's crazy. Last time he kept going on and on about all these insane conspiracy theories. You wouldn't believe how much he got on Gibbs' nerves."

Langer smirked, "THIS coming from the guy whose worked here for four years and the man still calls you George."

"Shut up, 'Bruce"

Gibbs came back, snapping," You two bozos done. Let's go."

"Yes, Boss." Langer and Burley scrambled out of the bullpen.

* * *

Tony stood up as the NCIS vans pulled up. He didn't see why Munch hadn't caught this case. He was always working the Navy cases. In hindsight, that might be the issue. He must've pissed off one of the higher ranking agents. Dinozzo grimaced at the thought of Munch having to explain what exactly he said to piss off a fed. He mostly grimaced for whoever had this being explained to them.

Three agents climbed out of the front of the first one, all men. Two of them were younger, athletic looking. The third was grey-haired, with a classic marine hair cut. From the second vehicle, three more people got out, one of which was wearing similar NCIS garb as the three male agents, only it was a woman. The two men who got out with her immediately headed for the back of the van. One of the men was in his fifties, maybe sixties, short and very active with his hands, moving them back and forth as he spoke to the other, younger man, who had one speaker of a set of headphones over one ear and a walkman radio and cassette player at his hip.

The grey-haired agent, very obviously in charge by the way the other three agents hung back a bit, made a beeline toward an officer standing by the crime tape. The head agent said a couple of words, Tony was too far away to hear, and the officer pointed toward Tony, who had been leaning against the building the commander had fallen off of.

"Detective Dinozzo?" the agent asked, though it wasn't really much of a question. Tony smiled and nodded. He raised his brows in question of who they were.

"I'm Special Agent Gibbs, these are Agents…" Gibbs waved vaguely at the other three and walked away, toward the short older man, leaving the three agents to introduce themselves.

The three shared an amused look and walked off, not bothering to do so.

* * *

Baltimore, MD

March 11, 2010

Tony walked up to the new Baltimore PD building, with slick, modern steel and curves in the architecture; it was rather impressive looking. After overcoming his short bout of awe, he made his way to the reception desk. This place HAD come a long way; it had a reception desk! At NCIS, the only one with a receptionist was Vance-a-lot.

The woman behind the desk was in her mid-to-late thirties, with rosy cheeks and blond hair done up in a bun. She was fielding calls for three minutes before she had a long enough break in rings to help Tony.

"Could I point you somewhere?" she smiled, revealing the teeth of a child whose parents couldn't afford braces, but had taken care of her smile.

"Uh, yeah. I'm have a meeting with Captain Pankraz. I haven't been here for a couple of years and I have no idea where his office is." Tony, admittedly, had avoided coming back here, considering he hadn't left for NCIS under the best of terms. He didn't want to get punched by someone he used to know. A lot of people had said good reddens to Detective Tony Dinozzo, all those years ago, back when he'd met Gibbs.

It had been a bad case, involving a lot of people who had screwed up, some of which had been cops and politicians. Tony shook away the past as the sweet blond wrote down Taffy's office number and gave him rough directions to his office. He would have flirted if he didn't see the VERY obvious picture of the receptionist and what was probably her husband, looking happy as they played with a grey hound. Was he being foolish quitting NCIS, for what? A woman who ran off in the middle of the night. It had been amazing how his life had gone from top shelf to cheap crap literally over night.

Tony's thought process was interrupted when he turned to see his old boss sitting at a official looking desk, bossing some Major Crime newbie around. His brown hair was graying at the roots, and didn't have the sleek look it had when Tony had worked for him, over ten years ago. Taffy had definitely gained some weight, having grown old to liken to the greed rich bastards from spy movies. Of course, no one would ever accuse David Pankraz of being a greedy bad guy. A bastard of a boss, but outside of work he was little more than a tall, and now big, teddy bear. He definitely sounded a bit evil, but was really a good guy.

"Listen to me, I've been in charge of detectives since before you could how up the little gun of yours. If you can't handle working the New York case with Munch, then give me your badge now." Taffy stood up and leaned toward the young, scared looking detective. "Now, Littleton, scram! I have a few things to discuss with my friend."

The boy nodded, grabbing his coat and dashing out of the office. Taffy looked up and smile, his demeanor changing like the flip of a coin. "Dinozzo! Looking like as much of an idiot as ever, I see. Sit down, tell me who you pissed off this time."

Tony sat down across from his old boss. "I just screwed up a bit. Threw all my chips on the wrong number, now I'm out a job and lost the girl." Taffy made Tony feel chattier than with most people. The Baltimore Police Captain had that affect on people, employee and suspect. This gift was why he hadn't retired years ago.

"She's pretty, I hope." Taffy smiled.

"Very." Tony smiled.

"Doesn't sound like a screw up to me. A screw up is what got you shoved through a window ten years ago." Taffy smirked, remembering the look on young Dinozzo's face when he opened his eyes to find himself staring at his boss and future boss, who were two stories above him.

* * *

July 13, 1999

The NCIS Medical Examiner and Forensics had determined that Commander Travis Wishfeld had been shoved off a thirtieth story balcony. Tony and one of the agents, who'd introduced themselves as Greg Taylor, were checking the thirtieth floor of offices for any one who might have seen the Commander up there. So far, nobody knew nothing. Someone had said something about not being able to talk about it. This case was starting to reek of the mob.

"You know, I don't think the mob throws people over balconies." Agent Taylor comment when Tony said as much, "They usually prefer cement boots or anything that keeps the body from showing up."

"How would you know, Sherlock? Your boss doesn't even know your name." Tony knew it was a low jab, but this guy wouldn't shut up. He'd already learned more than he ever wanted to know about computers at the turn of the millennia, not that a lot of people thought it matter. Tony didn't believe it himself, but a lot of people kept saying that the world was going to end in December, when the world left the 20th centaury behind. Who knew, maybe the 21st centaury was when it all changed, maybe the world would finally chill and cut the wars out of daily life. Tony shrugged off the thought, reaching out and knocking on the last office door on this floor.

A man, about sixty or so, opened the door, scowling. "What do you want?!"

"I'm Detective Dinozzo, from PD, and this is Special Agent Taylor from NCIS." Tony point toward the five foot computer geek that stood behind him.

"Is that anything like NIS?" the scrooge scowled further.

Tony looked at Taylor, not knowing what NIS was.

"Yeah, we used to be NIS, we change our name in '92." Taylor said lamely.

"Oh," the man paused, thinking about something, "What do you want?!"

"We were wondering if you saw this man," Taylor held out a picture of Commander Wishfeld, "on this floor earlier.

The man squinted, "He looks like the guy I told to scram this morning. He and this other guy were arguing in the hallways."

"Do you know what this other guy looked like?" Dinozzo asked, Taylor putting the photo under his arm. "Could you describe him to a sketch artist?"

"I didn't get a good look at him. But he was young." The man shook his head. "He was about your height," he motioned toward Agent Taylor, "with weird colored hair, I think it was red."

"Like Orange or actually red?" Tony asked.

"Red as a sailor's warning."

Well, that narrows down the suspect pool to every crazy teen in the area.

"Thanks for your help, call if you think of anything else." Tony handed the man his card, and headed back to the first story of the building. The elevator was out, so they took the stairs and Tony got down to some detective work on whom exactly NCIS were.

"So, who'd you piss off to get stuck working for Billy goat gruff?" Tony feigned assuming that working for Gibbs was a curse, not knowing exactly who he was yet. He knew better than to jump to assumptions.

Taylor made a half hearted grunt. "I wish. It would be easier that way. Nope, it's hard work to get onto Gibbs' team, harder still to stay in it. He doesn't even know any of our names, and I've worked for him for three years." He sounded exasperated.

"Sounds rough." Tony dropped the subject on Taylor's foot, which would've shoved its way down his throat if they hadn't shut up when they did. Gibbs was waiting at the bottom of the stairs.

"So, Detective, what did you get?" Gibbs had an aura of dislike for the Marylander detective.

"Old man saw a kid with dyed red hair arguing with Commander Wishfeld earlier." Tony brushed off the apparent spite for local PD that Gibbs was hurling at him like spaghetti during one of Alpha Chi Delta's 'frat food fights'. Try saying that when you're drunk.

"Anything else?" Gibbs sounded as if he expected more.

"No, the guy who saw them didn't get a good look at the kid's face."

"But he recognized Commander Wishfeld?" Gibbs gave Tony and Taylor a look.

If he could see the commander's face and tell how old the person he was arguing with was, why couldn't he describe him?

Taylor, Gibbs, and Tony ran up the stairs as fast as they could to catch the man. But he was gone; had cleared out his office/apartment pretty quickly.

"Damn it!" Gibbs slammed a fist against the wall on his way out.

* * *

AN: People from Maryland are actually called Marylanders. I looked it up. Just so you know, AXE is what Alpha Chi Delta resembles in English.


	3. Moving Forward

Disclaimers: I do not own NCIS.

Spoilers: Pretty AU. Set after Love and Reason with mentions of Helen's Doubts.

Warnings: Swearing.

Pairings: Passive Tiva

A/N: Sorry for the wait, I'm getting over my con crud from Akicon '09. Happy Turkey Day!!

* * *

Baltimore MD

July 13, 1999

Tony leaned back in his chair, as he waited for his boss to finish with the chief. He was screwed.

"Dinozzo!" Pankraz leaned out of the chief's office.

"Yes, Boss." Tony scurried into the head honcho's office.

"Do you realize how lucky you are?" Oddly, the chief had a smile on his face.

"I still have my job?" Tony just knew that any moment he was going to get torn a new one.

"I just found out they caught the killer trying to use Commander Wishfeld's credit card. Matched the original description, too." Pankraz said in usual sour tone from where he sat.

Tony's brows scrunched up. "But the description was giving by someone who we suspect fled after we interviewed them. Why do we think that the description was any good?"

"Does it matter where the description came from as long as we catch the killer?" the chief got up from his chair to grab his coat. "Detective Dinozzo, if I were you I'd be happy that you didn't lose your job for the little mishap from earlier today. Now, I have a press conference to attend to, the Mayor wants us to look good."

------------

Tony was sitting a bar alone, surveying the crowd for any women who might want to feel some love tonight, when the television was replaying the press conference from earlier. The chief assured the public that the killer of Commander Wishfeld was in custody thanks to the help 'federal agents'. Tony wanted to brush off the chip on his shoulder, but his gut kept nagging him, saying that this wasn't the end. Telling him that this was a BIG mistake not to speak up.

"Scary, that guy just shoving people out windows." A women next to him said. "Glad they got him."

Tony knew he shouldn't have, but it was the right thing to do. "No, they didn't. That kid isn't the killer."

The women looked at him. "How would you know?"

"I worked the case, and the description used to catch the guy, it's not right." Tony put a twenty on the bar and walked off to make a phone call. A reporter, whose number he'd got a couple months ago, would love this story.

-----------------

Jethro Gibbs stood outside the old, brick building that housed Baltimore's homicide division. The detective from homicide, his name started with a D and sounded Mediterranean, was going to meet him soon and they'd agreed to investigate the murder together, albeit unofficially.

Gibbs was starting to like Dinardo's, Dorado's, or whatever's, style. He seemed a bit off the wall, but had decided to investigate a case he knew wasn't sitting right.

"So, Detective. What's you're plan?" Gibbs sipped his coffee as the homicide detective walked up.

"I have one, but I was hoping you'd have a better one." Tony smirked, as he and Gibbs walked toward his car.

"Rule 38. Your Case, Your Lead." Gibbs kept his small smile hidden behind his coffee.

"You have 38 rules?" Tony asked.

"50."

"Oh, you have a rule for everything then?"

"Pretty close. Can we get back to the case?"

"Uh, yeah. I was going over some of the interview notes from Commander Wishfeld's coworkers, and it mentions he lost some money to a scammer about three months back. His name's Jacob O'Hara, former Lance Corporal, dishonorably discharge for scamming a couple of his CO's out of cash. He just got out of a four year stint about two weeks ago. They never found the money." Tony yawned a bit.

"This boring you?"

"No, just haven't slept yet."

"Good. So, where's this Jacob O'Hara supposed to be?"

"His dad's apartment building in Richmond, but Mr. O'Hara the landlord wasn't answering his phone, so I looked up his driver's license, he's the same guy that blew me and Taylor off. By the way where is the rest of your team?"

"Not here. What's the address?"

"Here I wrote it down." Tony handed the brisk man a piece of scratch paper.

"Okay, let's go."

----++++====+++----

Baltimore, MD

March 20, 2010

Tony had now officially been a detective for Baltimore Homicide for less than two weeks. In that time, he'd managed to solve two cases that had been on the board for months, a robbery shooting and a domestic case. Overall, Tony was a bit bored. Not to the point of even considering going back and groveling at Vance's feet for his old job back, but still bored. Still, it was a good way to keep his mind of Ziva. The day after he'd come up to Baltimore, more like that night since Mr. Prefect Jones-Harkness had called him at close to three a.m. in the morning, Ianto had called to tell him that Ziva was in England with them and that she'd be fine. The Welsh man seemed to get what Tony was thinking, that Ziva leaving was his fault, and had tried to convince him that it wasn't. Tony wasn't completely convinced, but at least he saw a small light at the end of the tunnel, the possibility that Ziva and he could at least be friends again.

Until then, he had work. Mildly boring work, but, anything was better than kissing up to Vance-al-lot. He'd talked to Langer a couple of days ago, and apparently, Vance had used Tony's exit as a prompt to rearrange Major case, modeling it after New York's major case squad. Two agents on each of Vance's three teams. Langer and Wyn, being the only agents from the 'old' days, were paired together while the other two teams were still being decided.

"_Sounds just like Leon, snatching every opportunity for himself." _Tony had said. He remembered hearing from Agent G Callen, from the Los Angeles Office of Special Projects, that Leon had pulled a political game on Hetty when Callen and his partner had gotten stuck in a militia camp. Tony couldn't imagine having the cojones to run a game on Hetty; the woman was like a shorter female version of Gibbs. She scared the shit out him.

Surely, Tony mused as he finished paper work for his upcoming firearms test, Vance's reign as head honcho was drawing to a close. _Just hope his successor doesn't screw the pooch, too._

That's when Tony's new partner, Detective John Buckley, interrupted his thoughts.

"Hey, Tony. You done with your written test yet? 'Cause there's this new club opening up and I wanted to check it out."

John Buckley was like a younger, less privileged, a tad geek-ish version Tony. He was into movies and television, just they were mostly sci-fi and fantasy. Not exactly Tony's cup of tea. If only John new what he'd seen when he'd been in Cardiff. A freaking Pterodactyl! Tony smiled to himself. Torchwood was weird enough, even without the flying dinosaurs and aliens. They had Abby. Not to mention that Captain Harkness was apparently immortal.

John, who wasn't bad looking with his slightly curly blond hair, sea water grey eyes, and a face that looked like an older version of Zach Efron, nudge Tony out of his thoughts. "Well, Dinozzo, you gonna come?"

_Damn, _Tony thought, _why'd I get partnered with a chick magnet._ Tony could never compete with John at a club. Not that Tony thought himself bad looking, he just new when someone was better looking.

"Nah, John. I'm gonna just head home. I got plans tomorrow that are before noon." Tony smirked to himself, thinking back to when he would've been the one trying to drag Newt or one of the other detectives to a nightclub for some fun.

"Yeah, like what?" Another trait that made John different from Tony, other than him being ten years younger, was that he had to know everything. Okay, maybe **sometimes **Tony had nosed around his coworkers lives, but he didn't asked about **everything **they did. Had he?

"I'm driving down to D.C. to finish moving my stuff up here." Tony had just secured an apartment closer to the PD building less than a week ago, so he'd started moving his stuff up from his old apartment.

"Oh, come on. Can't it wait?" John sounded a bit like a child.

"No, it can't Jonny boy. My now-ex-landlord, wants me out by three so the new tenants can move in tomorrow." Tony gave John a look. This kid knew how to get on a man's nerves.

John backed off instantly. "Fine, your loss."

Tony shook his head as his partner sstalked off. _On second thought..._ Tony grabbed his coat, put his paper work away and ran after John.  
"Wait up!"

* * *

A/N: Hope to have another chapter up next week. Happy Holidays!


End file.
